In the wake of Lance Armstrong’s confession to Oprah Winfrey about using performance enhancing drugs and blood doping we look at the top 10 sports cheats of all-time.
10. Dora Ratjen
Dora completed in the High Jump for Germany in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The problem was Dora was in fact Hermann. He was coerced by the Hitler Youth to compete against women but unfortunately for Hermann he didn’t even medal, finishing fourth in the Games.
9. Rosie Ruiz
In 1980 Rosie Ruiz finished the Boston Marathon in a record-breaking time of 2:31:56, the third-fastest time recorded for any female marathon runner in history. Unfortunately a post-race investigation found Ruiz had actually emerged from the crowd to join in the race about half a mile before the finish line. Not only that, but it also emerged she had only completed the New York race by catching the subway to the finish line. Ruiz may well have taken inspiration from Frederick Lorz (see no.6), who “won” the 1904 Olympic marathon after driving 11 miles of the race in a car.
8. Chicago Black Sox
The Chicago White Sox were the clear favourites going into the 1919 World Series. There were rumours even before a ball was hit in anger that the game was going to be thrown by Chicago, which caused an influx of money to come in betting for their Opponents the Cincinnati Reds. The rumours were true, with eight members of the now branded Black Sox conspiring to throw the series.
7. Spanish Paralympians
The Spanish Paralympic basketball team took gold in 2000 Sydney Games in the “intellectual disability” category. Carlos Ribagorda, an undercover journalist, later revealed that the ten of the twelve players on the Spainish team were perfectly normal, and consequently the medal was stripped from them. It turned out that basketball was not the only Paralympic sport where Spain tried to cheat, with participants in table tennis, track and field, and swimming events also found not be disabled.
6. Fred Lorz
The marathon at the 1904 St Louis Olympic Games was one of the toughest ever contested. Held over a hilly course in the middle of a scorching afternoon, only 14 of the 32 starters made it to the finish line. First to cross the line was New Yorker, Fred Lorz. He had already been photographed with Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of the President of the United States, and was about to be awarded the gold medal, when word got out that he had covered 11 miles as the passenger in a car. Lorz claimed it was a practical joke but he received a lifetime ban, which was later lifted.
5. Balco
There are too many to name individually, but some of the main protagonists in one of the most infamous doping scandals of recent times include baseball hitter Barry Bonds, athletes Marion Jones, CJ Hunter, Tim Montgomery, and Dwain Chambers. The athletes were give an formulation known as “The Clear,” an undetectable, performance-enhancing steroid. Marion Jones was the most famous victim, eventually admitting to her steroid use prior to Sydney 2000. She was also jailed for lying to two grand juries and forced to face the ignominy of having to hand back her Olympic medals.
4. Ben Johnson
Johnson won the 1988 100m Olympic gold medal in a then world record time of 9.79 seconds. The Canadian was heralded as a national hero in his home country, but just 48 hours after his victory it was discovered Johnson had taken the banned substance Stanozolol and was consequently stripped of his gold medal and banned.
3. Hand of God
It is perhaps once of the iconic images in sports history, when Diego Armando Maradona handled the ball to score the first of two goals against England in the quarter-final of the 1986 World Cup. Many neutrals would probably go on to forgive his indiscretion as just four minutes later Maradona would score what was branded the “Goal of the Century”. When asked about his infamous first goal he said it was scored with “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”. Argentina went on to win the World Cup.
2. Boris Onishchenko
Perhaps the most ingenuous and yet utterly pointless example of cheating sport has ever witnessed. Blundering Boris wasn’t a bad modern pentathlete. The Soviet multi-eventer had won medals at the previous two Olympics in Mexico City in 1968 and in Munich in 1972. Unfortunately, he still felt the need to put his O-Level physics to the test and wired up a dodgy grip that would make his electric epee record a successful hit whenever he flicked a switch. However, the whole plan short-circuited because Boris’ epee kept setting the buzzer off when his lunges were nowhere near his intended target.
1. Lance Armstrong
Easily the biggest cheat of them all. After overcoming testicular cancer, Armstrong went on to win seven consecutive Tour de France titles. But despite his success there were continuous claims of foul play. Armstrong consistently denied doping for years and even won court cases against people and companies who accused him of cheating. He’s now come clean (for want of a better phrase) and confessed in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, although we already knew the extent his dishonesty when the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) officially charged him with doping and drug trafficking last year.
